Francesca Pinzone: Inspiring social enterprise

Francesca Pinzone is in the process of thinking and fleshing out a small social enterprise, sparked in part through studying the Graduate Certificate in Social Impact at UNSW.

“The course demonstrated ideas and programs of those who have achieved positive social change and has inspired me further to look outside the box at creative ways to deliver a social impact,” Francesca says.

“It has inspired to me to think about starting a social enterprise and has given me grounding and inspiration to start working towards this,” she says.

Francesca originally trained as a nurse and undertook international aid and development work with UNICEF and Medicins Sans Frontiers (MSF,) working in emergency relief and running an emergency hospital in Pakistan after a devastating earthquake in 2006. She then returned to Australia to work with CanTeen, the Australia Organisation for Young People Living with Cancer, as their National Services Manager.

“My role was to oversee a number of support services designed specifically for young people who had been diagnosed with cancer or who had a family member diagnosed. These services included a national counselling service, an online information and community support service and also a series of resources, all designed to help a young person better deal with their or a family members diagnosis,” Francesca says.

While working at Canteen, Francesca decided to study the Graduate Certificate in Social Impact, assisted by a CSI scholarship from the Commonwealth Bank, to better understand the not-for-profit sector as well as opportunities and trends in cross-sector collaboration.

“Having worked in the non-profit sector for six years, looking at outcomes and the opportunity to measure outcomes, social entrepreneurship and investment with a social purpose were all really interesting topics to me.  I also wanted to develop my leadership skills in this area,” she says.

“I was also really keen to meet other people who shared the same interests and have an opportunity to network with different people from a variety of backgrounds.”

“There is so much going on in the field of social impact and the richness of knowledge and ideas from the lecturers and discussions with fellow students was amazing,” she says. Francesca is currently helping coordinate the newly formed Graduate Certificate in Social Impact Alumni Network.

“I found the network of like-minded people who are interested in challenging the way things are done and creating change was just amazing. I am really lucky to now be involved in the Alumni Committee and look forward to continuing my association with CSI and keeping in touch with other students,” she says.